OSPE - The Voice - September 2017 - 21

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to keep up with Ontario's spiral growth.
In a sense, engineering in Ontario
came of age after the war as enrolment
in engineering programs increased
dramatically, though numbers were
still far from those we see in Canadian
universities today.
Many of these eager post-war
engineering graduates would go on to
become captains of their fields - from
manufacturing, to consulting, to service
in governing bodies of all sizes. In a very
short period, these graduates - many of
whom are still alive today in their 80s
and 90s - designed and built sewage
and wastewater treatment plants,
sanitary landfills, power plants, power
lines and major roadways like fourlane express highways, which continue
to be improved upon and repaired by
engineers today.
Born in 1929, Bill Goodings and his
brother Robert (Bob) Goodings, P.Eng.,
joined this cohort of 'war vet' engineers
after having graduated from the civil
engineering program at Queen's
University in 1951.
Reflecting on both his own and his
colleagues' professional experiences
in the field, Bill Goodings provides
a snapshot of the immense
infrastructural progress made in
Ontario during this period of growth,
particularly in terms of sewage and
water treatment systems, as well as
solid waste management.

In 1951...about 80% of raw sanitary sewage from municipalities across Canada was
discharged directly into surface waters, including Canada's freshwater lakes, rivers and
surrounding oceans, without being treated. Drinking water was drawn from these
same waters and was simply chlorinated before being pumped into watermains serving
homes and industry. Garbage dumps were small and sited at random, without complete
consideration of the proximity to local communities or groundwater supplies.
Ontario's road system consisted of dusty two-lane gravel roads that were connected
to a few two-lane highways, which were surfaced with Macadam or concrete.
Electricity was generated by a limited number of hydro power stations and was
distributed very locally by small transmission and pole lines, leaving most rural
regions without power.
The St. Lawrence Waterway could accommodate only small-sized freighters
because of the restricted dimensions and depths of its locks. But as municipalities
continued growing at a rapid pace into the 1960s, it became increasingly apparent
that larger, modern systems were required to meet the ever-growing infrastructure
capacity requirements. "It's important to note the critical role that all professional
engineers, in all disciplines, played during this period as they worked wholeheartedly to lay the infrastructural and technological foundations that would make
Ontario great," says Goodings. "Much of what was put in place back then still exists
today, and our successor engineering colleagues in civil engineering and beyond
have risen to the challenge to extend, improve, repair and replace these fundamental
developments, while creating entirely new innovations that serve just about every
part of the province."
ImPrOVed sewaGe and waTer TreaTmenT sysTems
In the 1950s, Dr. Albert E. Berry, P.Eng., worked diligently as a senior manager with
the Department of Health of the Province of Ontario to pioneer state-of-the-art sewage
treatment and water purification plants. Berry recognized that contrary to popular
belief, the biota in a body of water, even as vast as Lake Ontario, could not adequately
accommodate or naturally treat the anticipated large quantities of municipal sewage.
Berry championed the creation of the Ontario Water Resources Commission
(OWRC) - the precursor to today's Ministry of the Environment and Climate
Change - and was appointed its first general manager and chief engineer. Under
his leadership, the OWRC played a lead role in establishing Ontario's renowned
wastewater treatment plants by convincing the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) -
the provincial body tasked with monitoring the growth of cities in the province - to
stall most ambitious municipal plans for urban expansion until wastewater treatment
and sewage system capacity was adequate to accommodate said growth. The OWRC
successfully convinced the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC)
to support this initiative by offering participating municipalities financial grants
toward the capital cost of construction.
These initiatives prompted the creation of hundreds of new consulting engineering
firms, building contractors and equipment manufacturers, allowing Ontario to
attain the high water quality and treatment standards that, to this day, exceed most
jurisdictions in North America. Ontario's engineers undoubtedly provided the
infrastructural and scientific backbone of these remarkable achievements.
In fact, even beyond their technical contributions, municipal engineers during this
period drastically influenced how Ontario's cities are currently governed at the municipal
level, driving Ontario's policy for regionalization. Municipal engineers advised their local
politicians that larger, regional sewage and water treatment plants would prove more
effective than the myriad of small, inefficient facilities. This approach is considered one

September 2017

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